Autobiography versus Novel

When I was in college, majoring in English, my reading was mostly novels and other fiction. I was taught that truth only came through "art," and non fiction was not art -- it was mere reporting. Whatever. As the great Avenue Q song asks, "What can you do with a BA in English?" The answer is, other than wooing romance starved girls, not a lot. Since I've become older, I rarely read fiction. Exceptions are new things from Don Delillo, Phillip Roth, and Tom Wolfe. And Wolfe writes "new journalism," which is essentially reporting with some crap made up. Novels tend to bore me -- my mind wanders trying to keep up with plots involving characters that I know aren't real. More and more -- I read autobiographies of people I admire. I figure if someone really got somewhere in life, as opposed to my definition of loser (I coulda been a contenda...) I might learn something of value. Years ago, I read Sidney Poitier's "Measure of a Man." I recalled him yesterday, after meeting with a doctor who is, of all things, a white Bahamian. She was born there to American parents, and now has duel citizenship. We talked of the Bahamas -- a place I've visited for both business and pleasure well over 20 times. And when I think Bahamas, I think Poitier -- even though he was born in Miami. His great book traces the amazing life he had -- from growing up on Cat Island with hard working but poor parents, to Jim Crow bigotry in early 40s Miami, to washing dishes in NYC where a kindly Jewish waiter taught him how to read, to the top of Hollywood. I always dug him as an actor -- especially the coolest in the world Philly cop, Mr. Tibbs, prevailing over Southern prejudice in "Still of the Night." He's won all kinds of awards, and reached the top of Hollywood, and yet he says the measure of a man is something any man can aspire to -- take damn good care of your family. My own father was my model for this...he ALWAYS put my Mom and my sisters and me first. He went above and beyond -- taking care of my sisters well past childhood -- through marriages good and awful -- and always did it out of one pure thing: the love he had for us. I was talking with an old friend the other day about our identities. He's a doctor, and worked hard the entire part of his early life to get where he is. And yet, as he ages, he finds himself telling people he meets, less and less, about what he does for a living. Just yeaterday, Paul and I chatted witha court reporter after an aborted deposition. She told us so many lawyers she meets, when they stop to talk to her, go on and on about how great they are as lawyers, and how much money they've earned, and how many asses they've kicked... Not me, I told her. She asked me how I define myself, and I told her: first as a father. I may be self deprecating about everything else about myself -- but not who I am as a Dad...I KNOW I'm the best -- I put my all into it, and probably the only thing that would break my heart would be if my Ds ever rejected me. I know that will never happen... I was a pretty good son when my Mom was alive, but she's been gone over a year. My rabbi would say that I need to still be a good son -- by saying kaddish for her, and honoring the avviversary of her death. He also says that the Big Man cares, a LOT, whether I eat shellfish. NAAAAAAH! And so I measure myself, as we all do. Measuring my weight, well -- that's bad -- since I weigh 50 lbs more than I ought to . But measuring myself as a man --according to the means employed by a Bahamian American I admire a lot -- well, I damn well meaure up.